


'Sissel': a mended weave

by laughingpineapple



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Developing Friendships, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat, cat-induced friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2794586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As time repeats itself and then shoots off to a new future, some coincidences happen, some require a friendly paw, some a little bit of both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Sissel': a mended weave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gogollescent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogollescent/gifts).



_They were all interconnected_ , he once said to himself. _Somewhere, somehow, in some way._ Still sounds good. It is a meshwork of souls and they will all find each other again, but while some threads are intertwined, blending at every turn, others have to travel a long distance in the complex pattern of their lives before ever crossing paths.

And Sissel watches - it's what he does. He watches Jowd ever-so-casually introduce Cabanela to the retired Prof, watches the cautious opposites tiptoe around each other, the eternal optimist in his spotless ivory tower poking at the bitter king of the junkyard and getting burned back, both studying their worthy opponent before finding common ground in a merry bout of trash talk of their mutual friend (Jowd's laughter is the loudest). He watches Kamila and Amelie meet at the park one day, in a present where they both live so far from Lynne's flat, and exchange their favourite adventure books. He watches Missile find his little mistress again and he hears that tale retold over and over in high-pitched, delighted barks – Missile never learns the other half of the story, how himself and Jowd had to piece together all they knew of the other past and searched pomeranian litter after pomeranian litter to find the right pup and bring him back into their lives.

Sissel watches. He accompanies Jowd in his investigations first, then Lynne too, once she gets a real badge to complement her cheap plastic one. When crime rests and days are lazy, he pretends to take a nap in Yomiel's little repair shop and watches how a life gets rebuilt from scraps.

 

Sissel cannot feel the heat, but it's fun to follow the little spot of sunlight coming in from the window anyway. So on a still, cold winter day, early in the afternoon, the cat is slouching on the counter as the door creaks open and it takes less effort to peek at the newcomer through his powers than to budge his body and have a good look with his own eyes. In the red mists of the ghost world, that bright, proud tuft of hair still stands out, unmistakeable. Lynne?

“Sissel!”, the girl calls out, moving closer to have a better look at her boss's pet – with his telltale bandanna, crooked tail and penchant for playing dead, yes, this is Sissel alright – and to wonder what in all heavens the critter might be doing in this remote part of town.

_I could ask the same_ , Sissel muses back, mirroring her surprise. He knows that it's not work that has led her here, but it cannot be anything else either: she doesn't remember. The old timeline washed away and thankfully left no marks on the innocents; thanks to Yomiel's sacrifice that day in the park, in this present Lynne hasn't even tasted death. And he knows, because he remembers her telling him in another past and has observed from afar as the same happened this time round, that she had to let go of the terror of her kidnapping by locking it all up and throwing away the key. She doesn't remember.

 

“Sissel, whate are you doing here?”

_Again, detective, you're one to t_ _alk._ The cat whips his tail, puzzled and amused.

“Comin'!” answers a hearty voice from the store room. A woman walks in, carrying a printer in her arms; she drops the bulky piece of electronics on the counter and brushes the sweat off her forehead before gracing the newcomer with a smile. “I work here, honey. Who's asking?”

“I meant the cat!” Lynne bounces back, startled, but soon recoils with her trademark enthusiasm. “Hello, I'm Lynne!”

“Name's Sissel, as you'll have worked out.”

“Yes, yes, professional bias”, Lynne grins, toying with her detective badge until it catches the sunlight.

“So you know our mascot, here?”  
“Sure do! He's my boss's cat... I think it's him, it's got to be him.”  
“Him? For real? The cheating ruffian...!” As they talk, Sissel, with her fists on her hips, stares at the printer until inspiration strikes, then fetches a cord from a nearby drawer and leaves it on the counter for later use. What's more urgent, there is a guest (friend of a friend and therefore sacred, if the cat counts as 'friend', and he does) and no food on the table, so she excuses herself for a moment to come back with cookies, a mug and some cold coffee, the best the shop can offer. “So that's where he goes when he disappears for days...”

Sissel the cat scratches his dead ear with his dead paw. He doesn't _disappear_ , please, it would be below his status as a guardian cat – he has two families to take care of and all the friends made along the way.

“One mystery solved!” Lynne punches her palm in excitement – if it looks like a puzzle and qualcks like a puzzle, the cat muses, his lady detective's onto it. One day she will realize that Sissel's very existence is quite the enigma and boy will that be an interesting development. For now, she seems content with figuring out the deets of his double life, as after a pause she adds: “...but how comes you know him as Sissel, too?”

“I should be asking that! My husband named him Sissel, he says the kitten reminds him of me. Can't say I see it, but the thought is cute, I guess. You've got to love that cat, he's the smartest little guy.”

“And don't you get yourselves mixed up?”

“That's what I told him!” Several times, judging by the exasperated look on her face. “He says as long as the relationship's good, there's no way you can mistake the voice he uses to call his wife and the one he uses to call his cat... again, I'm not sure it makes sense, but it is cute.”

“Sounds like a funny guy...”

“Wait, let me call him. You must be here to see him, after all – came here as a client, didn't you!”

Lynne nods, holding onto her half-eaten cookie. Clients still get snacks, right?

 

“Yomiel! Come up! There's a detective investigating your cat!”

Some shuffled footsteps later, Yomiel emerges from the basement to peek at the pair from a flight of stairs, cat-like himself in his soft, wary movements and, Sissel notices, always cautious in slipping back into his physical existence: it takes so little to overwhelm him. Especially when the fight-or-flight response triggered by the simple mention of 'a detective' turns into the very specific fear of that one girl, of what she could have found out, what she must think of him. He's so, so sorry, but what can he say.

Knowing that his own initial concerns are being mirrored, Sissel grabs his friend into the ghost world to calm him down: Lynne cannot know, does not know, it's okay. Back into the realm of the living, Yomiel breathes.

 

“Hello! I know your cat. Do you know Detective Jowd?”

“...old friend”, Yomiel replies in a curt voice that weeds out any possible request for additional details. Chitchat isn't his forte to begin with and his ties to Jowd are his own godsdamn business, not to be trivialized by turning them into small talk. Even his wife only knows the barest details of the long, obsessive talks that brought them together during his ten years in jail, a brutal, frank space where they kept questioning their role in this present, asking themselves what rights they had to be still alive. Keeping themselves alive in the process. “Did he send you?”

The cat and Yomiel share a look – it would be just like the bearded bastard to pull a move like that, Sissel agrees, it is well-meaning and meets Jowd's insensitiveness quota, but he hasn't heard anything about it at home so it's probably not his fault this time.

 

“Nope!” Lynne sets down her coffee mug to fetch an envelope from her bag. “A colleague did! She says you make good prices.” Untied, the envelope reveals a worn-out portable CD player that must have been a high-end piece of technology in its heyday, but now barely holds onto its batteries. “I can't open my baby anymore, can you fix it?”

 

'As long as you stop calling things 'baby'', Sissel (the human) mouths outside Lynne's view, mimicking Yomiel, rolling her eyes as she follows his obvious line of thought – she dropped the habit herself years ago, but as understandable as her husband's intolerance is, taking it out on a new client isn't exactly best practice, especially when said client is a cutie pie.

“Sure thing! He can fix everything”, she says, wrapping her arm around Lynne's shoulder. “What can we arrange to live up to our reputation for bein' cheap?”

“Hey! Cheap in a good way!”

“I know, kid, I know what you meant! But you've gotta see, he is cheap in everything except hair gel and sometimes you have to remind him, it's the rules”

“I say–“

Lynne grins at her new mom-friend, both Sissels look at Yomiel, Yomiel for his part drops his shoulders and stares at the scene in front of him. Anxiety shoots up and grips his lungs. He sees that web of lives, for a moment, how they come together and part again, he sees the odd set of coincidences and shared acquaintances that brought the two women together to bond and become fast friends, and how he is being pulled over to join them, he sees the cat Sissel tying them all backward and forward like a spool.

It's a frail web hanging onto frail old pillars. So easy to ruin. Intentionally, by accident, whatever. Story of his lives. So he says–

 

“I say this one's on the house. New client's privilege, don't ya know, you're gettin' it back better than new!”

Yomiel breathes. Lynne cannot know, does not know. It's not okay yet, there are still long shadows lurking under the surface, guilt branching and slithering into his every gesture. But in this present, their new start can be an act of kindness.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ensembl...ish piece focusing on the requested characters and a bonus Sissel thrown in for good measure? I couldn't focus on developing a dynamic between Lynne and Yomiel in the new timeline, let alone a plot, without first knowing how they even met again, so I tried to write that story first :)  
> Yomiel's repair shop borrowed from indie RP tumblr thelivingred!


End file.
